


Okarenga Hlamalito Otsommak

by Elsin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aftermath, Fantasy, Gen, High Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Languages and Linguistics, Magical Language, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Read by the Author, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/pseuds/Elsin
Summary: Sometimes, the hardest part is what happens after you strike the Dark Lord down.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9
Collections: Gen Freeform Exchange2020





	Okarenga Hlamalito Otsommak

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/gifts).



[Listen/Download here](https://clyp.it/exmymkxk)

* * *

Anadyna has been here for three weeks now, and she still hasn’t gotten the servants here, or the soldiers, or even the generals, to stop wincing when she steps into the room. Maybe that’s to be expected. She did after all kill their last leader. But she can’t say she’s sorry about that, and it’s not as if she plans on killing any of them, after all. Although maybe they don’t really know that. They certainly don’t know her.

No one knows her.

Well, not no one, but Talia is far away from here, and Anadyna doesn’t know an easy way to contact her. Talia would laugh, tell her that this is silly, and she should just _make_ them understand that she means them no harm. And that’s probably why Talia wasn’t the one to do this. The council never did like how cavalier she could be.

And so here Anadyna is, having killed the Dark Lord, and stuck in this castle full of people jumping at shadows. She can’t even just leave them behind, run off back home to Tseda, though she certainly longs to do that. But when the Dark Lord fell to her blade she felt his kyitluvang snap to her all at once, and she knew she’d have to untangle that mess before she could leave.

And then—well. Then she passed out and woke up three days later, and all of the Dark Lord’s myriad kyitluvang were well and truly stuck to her.

The only person in the castle who _doesn’t_ flinch every time she lays eyes on Anadyna is the girl who made sure she didn’t die in the three days after her battle against the Dark Lord. Even without flinching, though, Madya is stiff and wary around her.

Anadyna can’t exactly blame her, given the circumstances.

At least _some_ good has come of it all—she’s been able to summon back the armies harrying villages, and has made it clear on no uncertain terms that until everything gets sorted out, there’s to be nothing from the military except to maintain the borders and to root out internal threats. No more expansions, especially not into peaceful Hlesana in the south—that’s where the Dark Lord’s final push was, and it’s still reeling. It doesn’t need more attackers sweeping in to break it down again.

So she supposes a fearsome reputation is good for something, after all—her new generals said not a word in protest to this edict of hers.

“Milady,” says Madya one morning, “there’s someone at the gates asking after you.” It’s been Madya who brought her news for a while now, though it really isn’t her _job_ ; something about her not being quite as afraid as the others, Anadyna thinks.

“I thought we were sending them away,” says Anadyna. There have been many visitors asking after her, and none of them have been worth seeing just yet.

“She insisted I tell you about her,” says Madya. “Said her name was Talia?”

And… Talia. Of course. That makes more sense than it doesn’t.

“Thank you,” she says to Madya, because she wasn’t raised in a barn thank you very much, and also she’s pretty sure the thanks are making Madya less wary of her.

“You’re welcome,” says Madya, and then she curtsies and leaves.

Anadyna makes her way to the front gates alone, and sure enough, it’s Talia standing there studying the walls in a dusty traveling cloak. She lets her in quickly, and Talia grins at her, all sharp edges and flippant irreverence.

“You did it, then,” she says as Anadyna leads her back to the castle.

Anadyna snorts. “No, I’m just hanging around Castle Elaq for the fun of it.” She sighs. “If we’re taking that angle, might as well add dozens of generals and hundreds of servants and more soldiers than I know what to do with to the things I’m dealing with just for _fun_.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’re still here.”

“You thought I’d head straight back to Tseda once it was done.”

Talia shrugs. “Well, I’d have headed off to go adventuring, but you’re more attached than me, so I figured you’d go home. Imagine my surprise when I got there and you were still _here_.”

“Turns out,” says Anadyna, “the Dark Lord I was sent to defeat? Had a lot—and I mean a _lot_ —of kyitluvang hanging off of him. And now I’m stuck with them all.” Talia winces at that, and maybe at Anadyna’s tone too. She’s never sure, when it comes to Talia.

“What are they for, anyway?”

“What _aren’t_ they for?” Anadyna gives a hollow laugh. “Talia, if—if no one’d come to kill him—I don’t know what would’ve happened, but he could’ve lived a thousand years or more on these kyitluvang. He must’ve used them for just about everything under the sun—and I don’t know how to get rid of them.”

By now they’ve reached Anadyna’s quarters. After she woke up, she was offered the rooms of the Dark Lord himself, but she never wanted them, and so she’s in a smaller set of luxurious guest rooms. They’re still big enough to make her uncomfortable.

Talia slowly turns in the middle of the sitting room, which gives a decent impression of the suite overall, and whistles. “He didn’t go small, did he.”

“Not when it came to impressing his guests, no.” Anadyna smiles wryly. “Can’t say he offered me the same, but then again I _did_ come to kill him, so I can’t say I blame him for _that_.”

“No,” says Talia, “not for that. There’s _plenty_ to blame on him without it anyway.”

* * *

The next morning, Anadyna is woken by a knock on her door—it’s later than she usually rises, and she doesn’t blame Madya for it when she lets the younger girl in.

“Seriously,” she says, “it’s fine. I needed to be getting up anyway. What’s it this time?”

“You were talking to Talia yesterday,” says Madya, very slowly. “And you said you wanted to get rid of the kyitluvang.”

“I do.”

“Well, I. I might be able to tell you something about that.” Madya twists the hem of her shirt between her hands in a way that can’t possibly be good for the fabric, and rocks back on her heels. Anadyna has never seen her so nervous.

“All right, then,” says Anadyna. “Let’s hear it.”

“He didn’t—didn’t do much on me,” says Madya. “Only one tluvang, really, and he didn’t bother weaving secrecy in—I was just the healer’s apprentice, after all, and a little girl besides. Who’d believe me, if they dared cross him at all? Besides, only the holder can release it, as far as I know.”

“That’s usually the point.”

“Right. So. You know Anetera Hwidha, right?”

“Ane… what?”

Madya stares at her. “You… don’t, then.”

“No, ‘fraid not. Why? Should I?”

Madya sinks her face into her hands, and says, voice muffled, “I don’t believe it. All— _all this time,_ and we just—we just—oh for _crying out loud_ —” She lifts her head, and meets Anadyna’s eyes for the first time. “Your friend might know. I’d expect her to, but—I expected _you_ to know, and look how _that_ turned out.”

So Anadyna goes and gets Talia, who was, thankfully, already awake. She’s had breakfast, too, which is good—when hungry, Talia’s awful to deal with.

“What do you need me for?” asks Talia.

“Please tell me you know Anetera Hwidha,” says Madya. “Please.”

Talia groans. “Don’t remind me,” she mutters. “But yeah, I do, mostly—I’ve forgotten some things, but I probably remember enough. Why?”

“His Lordship locked his kyitluvang into Anetera Hwidha,” says Madya. “And I don’t know it well, so I can’t give full instructions here.”

“Just… locked them into the language?” says Talia. She sounds skeptical, and _there’s_ the answer that Anadyna’s been wanting, about what they’re even _talking_ about.

“Ah,” she says. “A language. That’s what it is.”

Madya blinks. “A language for magic,” she says, like she’d forgotten that Anadyna didn’t know. Maybe she did. “And yes. Just locked them it—and no, he doesn’t have extra wardings on them; at least not for the ones like mine, but I’m not all that important. He might’ve done something else with the generals, but they’re bloodbound to secrecy—they can’t tell anyone who doesn’t already know.”

“Right, right,” says Talia. “What’s the easiest way out, then?”

“I give you to yourself,” says Madya. “That’s all.”

Talia nods. “Give me a minute,” she says, and then she’s sitting down at the table to scribble something out in a script that Anadyna only vaguely recognizes and definitely can’t read.

Her initial translation only takes a minute or two, but it ends up taking the rest of the morning for Anadyna to be able to _say_ the stupid thing—Anetera Hwidha, it turns out, has _absolute tone_ , which is such utter nonsense that Anadyna can hardly begin to grasp it.

Tricky as it is, though, she gets it in the end, at least enough that Talia says it should work. She hopes it does—Madya looks hopeful, in a way that Anadyna’s never seen on her, and she doesn’t want to let her down. Not to mention one tluvang down would be one less for her to have to bear.

Madya kneels in front of her, and Anadyna places a hand on her forehead.

“Nnȧffí ėdhė ȧnȧ u̇nùnȧ,” she says, in halting, broken Anetera Hwidha, but it’s enough. _It’s enough_. She feels the bonds of the tluvang melting away from her, and from Madya’s shaky grin she thinks that the younger girl felt it too.

“I’ll tell the others,” says Madya, “if you want me to.”

“I—yes,” says Anadyna. “That would be… that’d be good. They should know that I don’t—I don’t _want_ their kyitluvang on me anymore.”

Madya smiles at her, her wariness all but completely melted away. “Thank you, Anadyna Finunotlutura!” she says, and goes off. Anadyna watches her go.

Talia laughs. “So you’ve got yourself an epithet at last,” she says. “I was wondering when you’d get around to it.” She reaches up and ruffles Anadyna’s hair, which she’s liked to do ever since she learned that Anadyna herself didn’t care for it. “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you, Anadyna Stormbreaker.”

“Looks like I do.”

She can’t wait to get started.

**Author's Note:**

> Ȧnétèrà Hwidhá is a conlang I've been working on for most of this year--it doesn't actually belong in this setting, but I like it, so here we are. In its original setting it's not a language of magic; then again, it _always_ has its tones in that setting, not just in specific circumstances.
> 
> The title is in Ȧnétèrà Hwidhá, and it literally would translate to "The Free People's Empire," though I'd probably render it as "Land of the Free" or something like that.
> 
> "Tluvang" means something like "something that anchors or tethers," and "kyi-" is a pluralizing prefix.


End file.
